Japan’s ‘Moon Sniper’ mission looks to match Indian success

Hot on the heels of India’s historic lunar landing, Japan’s space programme is hoping to rebound from a string of setbacks with this weekend’s launch of its own mission: “Moon Sniper”.

Set to blast off Sunday, the rocket will carry a lander expected to reach the Moon’s surface in four to six months as well as an x-ray imaging satellite designed to investigate the evolution of the universe.

Japan’s space programme is one of the world’s largest, but its first attempt to put a lander on the Moon failed in November 2022, and a new type of rocket exploded during a test last month.

The hopes of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are now centred on the SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon).

As the name suggests, SLIM is small and light, standing 2.4 metres (7.9 feet) high, 2.7 metres wide and 1.7 metres long, and weighing around 700 kilogrammes (1,545…